(Warning: This essay contains what used to be strong language.)
I’m quite the fan of absurdist drama. Whether it is Jean Genet’s The Balcony, Francois Rabelais’s Pantagruel, Tom Robbins’s Jitterbug Perfume, Nikolai Gogol’s The Nose, or Anthony Scaramucci’s Leakers, Paranoiacs, and Oral-Onanism, I am impressed with the creative stretching and bending of raw reality. Western civilization needs artists like these to offer us a glimpse of our own potential, and in this fashion, the impossible becomes possible.

I believe it was the ancient philosopher Pliny the Elder who lectured, “Quam multi fire non posse, priusquam sent fact, judicantur?” Well said, Pliny. I heartily agree with the sentiment. How many things are considered impossible until they are actually done? Pliny’s words inspire my own imagination, or in other words, blank my own blank.

We pedestrians, rooted in reality, need certain “human telescopes” to help us peer past the horizon of our own limitations. Whether it is space exploration, gene-therapy treatment, or the improbable ability to bury our own heads into our crotches, the modern surrealist demonstrates that nothing is beyond reach. I can become my own masterpiece, or in other words, blank my own blank.

We admire the runner of a marathon, yet we look on in astonishment at the acrobat who seems to defy the very laws of gravity that everyone else must humbly obey. There is a difference between an artist that can paint down to the finest detail the exact likeness of a warty old king, and the artist that paints an enormous tongue rising like a tsunami to taste the tips of a sprawling metropolis. The former is the slave to reality, the latter its master. Each, however, follows its own muse, or in other words, blanks its own blank.

Not all hedge fund managers can be great artists, and they are rarely contortionists. The only things they are usually good at bending are the rules for risky investment. So it was doubly impressive to witness one of the modern surrealists questioning the limits of human gratification. In what will become known as quintessential Scaramuccian, I watched a brash Long Islander (hometown boy) put his foot in his mouth, his dick in his mouth, his asshole and everything else in his mouth and then spray it across the national consciousness. Not since Petr Pavlensky nailed his balls to Red Square has an act been so shamelessly grotesque. The Mooch was right, though. He wasn’t “trying” to touch his foreskin to his uvula. He was “effortlessly succeeding.” Job well done, Patrick Bateman. Now go murder a hooker.

Many artists have very volatile, short life spans. Dylan Thomas lasted thirty-nine years. Thomas Wolfe, thirty-eight. Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, all twenty-seven, and Anthony Scaramucci, for all intents and purposes, lasted eleven days. It took him a little less than a fortnight to dig his own grave, or in other words, blank his own blank.

He suffered for his art. Join the club, Bubba.

Out of the moldy bread comes the penicillin, though. I’m more inspired than ever to blank my own blank. In blanking my own blank I can create my own bliss, and I invite everyone to do the same.
Blank your own blank. Build your own castle in the sky.
Blank your own blank. Resist your own demons.
Blank your own blank. Listen to your own sense of decency. Fill in the empty spaces with something that will lift others to a higher sense of social obligation. It will be a nice change of pace.
More blanks to blank.